Such pad systems are used to support spectacle frames, preferably spectacle frames of metal whose bridge does not sit on the bridge of the nose in the region of the root of the latter.
British Pat. No. 1,498,973 discloses a pad system in which the small plates or pads which rest on the nose are pivotably attached on the pad arm and thus can automatically conform to the shape of the area of the nose on which they rest. Such pad systems are comparatively expensive and the pads are hard to replace.
Based on the realization that it is entirely sufficient to fit the pads only once to the shape of the area of the nose on which they rest, pad systems in which the pads are fixedly connected with the pad arm are increasingly used. For fitting, the pad arms are bent until the desired seat of the pads on the root of the nose has been achieved. In such systems, the pads have a blind hole which is provided either in the pad itself or in a part laterally fastened on the pad, into which the end area of the pad arm is inserted under stress. Such a connection is entirely sufficient; it has the advantage that the pads can be simply exchanged by pulling them off the pad arm.
To avoid sliding of the pads and with them of the spectacle frame on the nose, German Pat. No. 25 45 683 discloses that the pads can be made of a soft material with physiologically harmless properties, for example of silicone rubber with a Shore-D hardness of from 00 to 30. There are difficulties in connecting such a material with a pad arm via a blind hole provided in the pad since there is the danger of the rigid pad arm penetrating the pad. This difficulty has been overcome as disclosed in German Pat. DE-PS No. 28 19 141 by placing the blind hole in a sleeve of a semi-flexible material, for example of polyamide, and embedding this sleeve in the soft material.
The blind hole is generally of rectangular shape and the end area of the pad arm has a corresponding cross section. The expression "generally of rectangular shape" is to be understood to mean that the cross sections of the blind hole and the pad arm are longer than they are wide. This prevents twisting of the pad attached to the pad arm.
The known pad systems make it possible to make allowance for the anatomical actualities of the facial shapes occurring in people of a particular race However, in different peoples and races such typically different anatomical actualities exist, especially in the area of the sides and root of the nose, that the requirements for the optimal fit of spectacle frames can no longer be satisfied with one and the same pad system. As an example, the shape of an Asiatic face could be mentioned, where the area of the root of the nose is wider and of lesser height than in the shape of the typically European face. Thus far this difficulty has been met by providing differing pad systems for the different typical facial shapes. Of course, this involves additional expense during manufacture, storage and control of deliveries of models of spectacle frames intended for worldwide sales.